He charted and analyzed the path of ruin, trying to determine whether there was a twister.

There was. There might have been more than one, Budd said, all from a storm that originated in Maryland.

A weak EF-1 tornado — maybe 90 mph — touched down at the Klick-Lewis car dealership in Palmyra — right across the street from where the roof of a home converted to apartments collapsed, twisted inward.

About 12 miles to the northeast, a slightly stronger twister — reaching wind speeds of an estimated 110 mph — swept through farmland, lifting roofs, denting silos and leveling rows of trees.

“Take a look at the scope of this, who would expect a high-tension tower to come down?” Budd said. “Every time we have a thunderstorm worth its salt, it seems to knock down a few trees. But this is more than that.”

It’s been eight years since this state has seen so many bad storms in such a short period of time, Budd says.

Weather can be powerful. And under clear, blue, sunny skies, it’s hard to imagine the force that was needed at 6:30 a.m. to slightly lift a school bus of children, as a woman told Budd, shaking them a bit before passing over.

Budd can see it.

“Our maps were lit up like Christmas trees,” he said, referring to the agency’s weather radar. “Yellows, oranges, reds.”

He jots down the longitude and latitude of what he observes, snaps photographs, records how many buildings were damaged, and what direction the wreckage, the grass and the trees point.

He grids each step on a map, using little more than a pencil and old-fashioned compass.

When he gets back to his State College office, where he is meteorologist-in-charge, his data will merge with that of other meteorologists who are doing the same thing in counties across the state.

Budd learns from the wreckage. But he spends a lot of time with people, too.

At his first stop, on Victoria Lane in a Palmyra neighborhood, a couple gives him the first clue: They were awakened by the noise of the windows shattering. It was about 6:30 a.m.

Down the street, on Hetrick Lane, there is a shed that was lifted off its foundation. Budd snaps a picture.

Then another of bushes all half-uprooted and in a straight line. Here, homeowner Janis Banks says her neighbor called 911, and her cell phone is time-stamped 6:21 a.m.

“It appears to be tornadic,” Budd says, holding his hand over his eyes to shield the sun. He can see the circular footprint left by the wind as it dropped debris.

It’s strange, though, to have a tornado hit in the morning. Typically, that kind of storm strikes late in the day — about the time Budd is touring this storm’s path.

A few blocks away, on East Maple Street, the roof of a business is stuck in a tree. It landed at least a block from where it was torn off, and the tree is higher than the building.

Then Budd moves to Klick-Lewis, where news crews are stationed and children with cameras are balancing on the curb nearby, snapping shots of the destruction.

“It appears there was a very weak tornado,” Budd says, looking at cars with smashed windshields, banged-up grills and dented bumpers.

Across Main Street, the roof of a converted apartment home is buckled. The orbicular style of the wreckage tells Budd a lot.

He says it’s lucky no one was hurt by this storm, but the time of day probably contributed to that. Most people were sleeping in their homes when they heard the loud noises — the wheeling wind, the crash of debris.

At 6:46 a.m., dispatchers got a call from a woman trapped in her collapsed basement. Another man on Shuey Farm was lying flat on the floor of a milkhouse, waiting for the storm to pass.

When he emerged, the barn’s roof was gone, scattered like toothpicks reaching as far as Interstate 81, which is about a quarter-mile away.

Here, in East Hanover Twp., Lebanon County, it’s clear to Budd that the storm damage is worse.

A metal sheet from a roof is wrapped around a telephone pole, in the opposite direction of downed trees.

Down the road, at Shuey Farms, it looks like someone scooped the middle from the the barn where cows now rest under open skies.

Families have been working all day to clean up the mess.”Who would expect to see parts of the roofing over on that side, and just down the road we had the roofing on the other side?” he asks. “It just goes to show you the capricious nature of the wind.

“When it comes to tornados, Pennsylvania is the minor leagues,” he continues. “Although the story about the kids in the bus was a close call, I would say.”

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